Bingo Games, Daytime TV: Biden Woos Older Voters to Stop Trump

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Bloomberg

May 11, 2024 at 9:00 AM EDT


Pollsters are calling the 2024 presidential election a coin toss. President Joe Biden’s campaign hopes the race will actually be decided by bingo balls.

The president’s team is intensifying outreach to older voters, with volunteers organizing bingo games in swing states and running ads during daytime shows popular with seniors, such as The Price is Right. It’s a bid to capitalize on polls showing Biden leading Donald Trump among those 65 and older, reversing a trend that’s seen seniors back Republican nominees in recent elections.

Older voters are a coveted bloc, boasting the highest turnout rate of any age bracket and sizable populations in battleground states. They’re even more important this year, offering Biden the chance to offset losses from younger voters frustrated by his handling of the Israel-Hamas war and other issues.

Biden’s team believes seniors could make a difference in the battleground states, a campaign official said on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Democratic strategist Tom Bonier said older voters are tuned in to political news, including coverage of Trump’s criminal cases. “Voters who are paying the closest attention are those who are abandoning Trump and the Republican Party at higher rates than any others,” Bonier said.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-11/bingo-games-daytime-tv-biden-woos-older-voters-to-stop-trump?srnd=politics-vp

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No paywall (gift)

[kimbutgar]

1. Also show commercials of TFA saying he wants to do away with social security and Medicare during those daytime shows

They have him on tape saying this!

[mountain grammy]

6. Yes!

Hammer this message home every day. Republicans are not friends of SS Medicare or Medicaid. Plenty of quotes to go around.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Good points.

Pollsters saying it is a coin toss?

The last paragraph about seniors paying the closest attention to political news including coverage of Trump trial is likely key.

If this was the 1970s there would only be the newspapers and news on local ota stations for seniors. They would have not receivef the full news.

[KS Toronado]

3. Swing states, battleground states, swing states, battleground states, swing states, battleground states

All I hear is what we're doing or going to do in swing states & battleground states. Believe there's hundreds of
thousands if not millions of Rs in the not swing states & battleground states who are wanting an alternative
to TSF. Let's not let RFK Jr. go pick them up. Time we had a national plan to attack all the R insurrectionists in all
50 States.

There's so much to attack their party over, all Rs voted to impeach Nixon, today they're still lying about losing
the last election and they're going to lie about losing the next one. Are we prepared?

A little effort in all the States would pay off handsomely down ballot, IMO.

[NanaCat]

7. Presidential campaigns do not have unlimited resources

They have to prioritize and put the money first where it's most needed and likely to help, then where it might make an unexpected difference. Places like North Carolina and Nevada will get a bunch more love this year, because the odds of getting good results in them will justify it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the DNC made a large-but-under-the-radar GOTV investment in, say, those massive Texas metro areas, because they have enough people to flip a state to your side if they can turn out enough votes.

The problem is that most red states don't have what Texas does to make them flippable: A large enough urban population + a suburban population trending ever bluer to justify giving them precious resources. It would be silly to invest in Alabama or West Virginia, and probably not a great idea to do it with Missouri, either. They just don't have what it takes to justify unusual allocation of resources for votes that won't materialize, even if you put hundreds of millions into winning them.

[KS Toronado]

9. So back to swing states & battleground states again

When are we going to educate everybody that will listen that the reQublican party today is evil and shows no signs
of doing anything remotely righteous for the American people?

We need to rid Congress of as many Rs as we can so Biden will have 4 years of change and success so that voters
will start switching parties to Democratic and sweep Rs into the dustbin.

And please don't tell me we have no money, TSF has no money, he can not afford to spend any money except in
battleground States, so I believe we should be going there.

[GenThePerservering]

4. "The president's team is intensifying outreach to older voters, with volunteers organizing

bingo games in swing states and running ads during daytime shows popular with seniors, such as The Price is Right."

Say what? Are they concentrating on the over-90 crowd?

IAC, I hope Boomers and GenX'ers are VERY tuned into the GOP's stated desire to end social security and medicare. These are earned benefits, NOT entitlements.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. "Say what? Are they concentrating on the over-90 crowd?"

Remember that there are more and more "55+ senior" communities (several thousand at last count), including those characterized as "active adult living" (note the infamous "The Villages" in FL is one such community), and "assisted living" (which is NOT at "nursing home" level for care but captures those who are mobile and can be somewhat independent, having upwards of 1 million who are in such arrangements).

These communities actually promote these types of activities at their facilities or within their developments.

I.e., they may host poker nights, cribbage nights, scrabble nights, etc.

This isn't just "over-90" stuff.

[NanaCat]

8. 90 y/os aren't the only bingo fans.

My mum lived in a senior community in South Texas for a while. Nearly all of them in their late 60s to early 80s. The community held bingo tourneys 5 nights out of 7, and they were packed, every time the doors opened up.

I worked in a building that had once been an urban K-Mart. Our business took up 1/3 of the space, a vocational school took up another 1/3, and the remaining 1/3 was a bingo hall. It opened only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but it didn't have an empty table on any night. At least half of the people daubing their cards didn't even qualify for AARP.

Bingo is always super-popular wherever people don't have easy access to legal gambling.